Management of Non Alcoholic Fatty Liver Diseases and their Complications

There is a rapid raise in the metabolic risk factors in the general population and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease has become the most common cause of liver disease worldwide. Early detection of hepatotoxicity is extremely important because continued ingestion of the drug is often associated with a poor prognosis. Insulin resistance play a central role in the pathogenesis of Non Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD); thus obesity, diabetes and the metabolic syndrome are frequently associated with the disease. Consequently, as these metabolic conditions emerge as major health problems in Western society, it is now accepted that NAFLD is the most common chronic liver condition in the Western world. The pathogenesis of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease is not completely understood and even if insulin resistance is a chief pathogenetic key, many other factors are implicated in both liver fat accumulation and disease progression to non-alcoholic steatohepatitis. There is, as up till now no firm evidence-based treatment for NAFLD. Therapy is currently directed at treating components of the metabolic syndrome which may also be valuable for the liver. Management is further complex by the inability to predict which patients will develop liver-related morbidity and thus benefit from treatment. Data were located, selected and extracted from SCI database, Medline, Pubmed, Highwire and Google Scholar.